Talk:Mummy Melcon

A lot of mummy's lore still revolves around her original interp as an actual mummy from Ancient Egypt, which had many racist connotations. Even her modern interp as a tigertaur originally came about from Sphinx imagery and it's not generally great that one of our few black characters is reduced to pretty stereotypical imagery.

After the lorejam that took place, I propose making changes to the wiki page with the following that was agreed on:

History

Mummy Melcon is an elder Hijabi and Arab Actress who was born in Alexandria, Egypt before moving to Cairo, Egypt for her acting career. Prior to her athletic career, she also acted in blaseball movies. She visited Hades for research, promotion and The Hades Film Festival. There, she met Yazmin Mason who was a fan of hers. Melcon was in the stands on Season 7 Day 71, wearing a bootleg “Hade Tigger” jersey also part of her film costume. When she witnessed Yazmin’s incineration, along with the state of the team following it, Melcon hopped the railing onto the field and took up Yazmin’s pitching. While researched for her acting, Mummy was not a trained pitcher and her beginnings were quite shaky.

Melcon speaks Egyptian Arabic natively, Egyptian Sign Language (ESL), English and French. Melcon speaks with a low raspy voice like the pages of her books because she binge drinks coffee. As a hobbyist historian, Melcon has a fondness for reading, collecting, and preserving old books. Coming up near the birthplace of coffee, Mummy also has a personal interest in ethically sourced. As an avid drinker herself, she sees it as a great principle of hers to ensure her supply doesn’t come from questionable sourcing practices.

Melcon is also a multidisciplinary scholar. She majored in linguistics and sociology. She originally majored in one, but her studies intersected with the other. Later, after completing her sociology doctorate, Melcon ended up entering the other field. Her scholarly background is what also led to her interest in Hades as a rich source of primary sources for the events of the past millennia, and for immortals who have insight on Hellenic and other dead languages.

Melcon is not particularly close with anyone on the team, due to her being busy with studies, acting career, and promoting and sourcing ethical coffee business. Being older and very approachable, a lot of the younger Tigers go to her for insight

Umpire Incident in Season 13

Prior to season 13, Melcon had witnessed Raúl Leal defend his teammate from a rogue umpire incineration. Since then, Melcon had been working on a hypothesis on how it occurred, and how it could be replicated without the Iffy Jr.

On the first day of Season 13, Melcon took the mound and pitched as she normally did throughout the game. At the bottom of the 7th inning, Melcon's studies came into play as the eclipse glimpsed, and an umpire’s eyes turned white, and turned to face Melcon. She remained calm and collected, as she carefully observed their movements. At that moment, Melcon had an epiphany. There is no proper documentation on what exactly transpired, but it’s said that since that day, the technique is safeguarded and preserved amongst the Hades Tigers.

Trivia

• She uses her notoriety as an actress and a blaseball player to promote local coffee growers and ethical coffee sourcing. She has had a tv show spotlighting coffee growers.
• She refuses to wear an official team jersey, even after she joined the team and was told she can wear an official one, she was heard saying:

"This one is nice and worn in. They already saw me in this anyway." Referring to her Hade Tigger Jersey.

Hi, I just saw this, I just wanted to let you know I'm the artist who made the depictions of Mummy as a sphinx/tigertaur that are credited to "Tigrishades" and attached to the gallery on this page. I apologize if I have contributed to harm by making art of this lore concept, and I wanted to let you know you're free to remove those artworks from the page if the whole concept is being removed for being insensitive. I will delete them from the wiki afterward as well if possible.

Proposing deleting/changing following trivia: "Melcon's fastball clocks in at a respectable 87 mph, but she struggles with the more complex pitches due to her smooth, dry wrappings. Tigers management found some success in having her periodically touch Richmond Harrison for moisture, but in an unpleasant turn of phrase, the ILB ruled this a spitball."

"Mummy Melcon is close friends with the parents of actor Rami Mlalek, of Mr. Notarobot fame."

The first references a previous orientalist version of mummy as a mummified corpse, which tigers brought up and discussed in discord chat before deciding to retire due to concerns of racism. The proposed change would delete references to bandages while leaving the rest of the trivia intact.

"Melcon's fastball clocks in at a respectable 87 mph, but she struggles with the more complex pitches. Tigers management found some success in having her periodically touch Richmond Harrison for moisture, but in an unpleasant turn of phrase, the ILB ruled this a spitball."

The second bit of trivia seems to be making a point of including a reference to Rami Malek solely due to his egyptian heritage/role in Night at the Museum. This correlation is unnecessary and frankly a little racist.This piece of trivia should be deleted.

Mummy is briefly mentioned in Walton Sports' update:

• Sports does not have much musical training, but he did take a sistrum with him when he left Breckenridge as a connection between his former team and his new one. Mummy Melcon is teaching him how to use an Egyptian sistrum properly.

Crossposted from the proposal for FFs pitcher Clare Mccall's page.

• Through their archivist work, Mccall has learned to read texts written in a number of classical languages, including Ancient Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. Mccall used her Latin skills and, “skeleton experience” to assist in death-related research being done by tigers pitcher Mummy Melcon, as well as to befriend Melcon’s teammate Nicholas Mora.

Crossposting some Mummy-relevant detail from Ayanna Dumpington's proposed update:

• Ayanna developed several friendships with fellow Stripes, including working on cracking Zion's jaded shell, attempting to befriend Mora (to mixed success), jazzercise with Mummy and Paula Mason (and Nandy Slumps), and having an admiring outlook towards Paula Turnip.

A lot of Tigers have been been rolling with Sphinx Mummy lately as an interpretation for her, something that we came up with over Grand Siesta to address some of the concerns about sensitivity with her previous lore. I've written a write-up of her lore to add to her page.

--

Mummy Melcon is a tiger-sphinx who was born in Egypt sometime during the Old Kingdom period. Being exceptionally long lived, and exceptionally curious, she has devoted her life to the study of anthropology and history, particularly to the study of afterlives and different forms of death around the world.

Melcon has visited many places across the world, and is always excited to learn more about other cultures. She is fond of tea, and likes to try different culinary delicacies wherever she goes. She wears scrolls containing her notes on a utility belt around her tiger body, and is often seen writing down her observations.

Around the time of season 7, rumors of Necromancy in the league brought Melcon to the ILB, and Hades felt like a natural place for her to begin her exploration into the unique interaction with afterlives that occurs during the course of a Blaseball season. She joined the Tigers after witnessing the death of Yazmin Mason.

She has continued her boundless curiosity as a member of the Tigers, and likes to exchange cooking recipes with members of the team. Melcon has also been spotted interviewing similarly long-lived or time-traveling ILB players to learn more from them about their experiences during other time periods.

Umpire Incident in Season 13

The following is an account of the events of Season 13, Day 1, as detailed by Orpheus, chief Announcer for the Hades Tigers.

Mummy stands at the plate, lost in thought. The umpire snarls in its position, fire seething behind the grille, building and building, waiting for the pitch, waiting for its opportunity.

Suddenly, with a flourish she signs off her notebook. Snaps it shut. Looks over and across as the blaze reaches a fever pitch. The umpire howls.

"Ah. I do believe I've made a breakthrough."

(Waiting for confirmation on how to credit this part from Elena, its author.) --

After killing an Umpire in Season 13, Melcon was introduced to the Dale’s protector and ump slayer, Raúl Leal. The two of them traded kandi bracelets to commemorate their victory. After Leal’s death in season 13, Melcon has been seen still wearing the bracelet as a memento.

Some Tigers were uncomfortable with Mummy Melcon's player history, as it played into certain harmful stereotypes. We believe it to be an accident, though, and that the person who originally wrote it was acting in good faith. I've just cut her current backstory from the page, and we will eventually put up a new one.